Someone sent me this list of useful hints. I don't know if they are all true, but they might be worth trying.

DID YOU KNOW?

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to pick the little
"stringy things" off of it. That's how the primates do it.

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave
them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh
much longer and not mold!

Peppers w ith 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.
Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the
grease away from the meat while cooking.

To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls
of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in
double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful
minty frosting.

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic
and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simple
chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples.
Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the
apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice
cream.

1. Reheat Pizza
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set
heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No
soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really
works.

3. Expanding Frosting
When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with
your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to
frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar
and calories per serving.

4. Reheating refrigerated bread
To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place
them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will
keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

5. Newspaper weeds away
Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet
newspapers put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.

6. Broken Glass
Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you
can't see easily.

7. No More Mosquitoes
Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

9. Flexible vacuum
To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an
empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be
bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

10. Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a
clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when
wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and -- ta da! -- static
is gone.

11. Measuring Cups
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot
water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your
ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right
out.

12. Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove
box of your car. When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better
than a cloth!

13. Reopening envelope
If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include
something inside , just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an
hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

14. Conditioner
Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's a lot cheaper than
shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way
to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it
in your hair...

15. Goodbye Fruit Flies
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass fill it 1/2" with
Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid, mix well. You
will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

16. Get Rid of Ants
Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it
"home," can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so,
especially if it rains, but it works & you don't have the worry about
pets or small children being harmed!

17. INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS
The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things
around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and
he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean.
(I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He
told us that he wanted to show us something; he took the filter over to
the sink, ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh
material - I'm sure you know what your dryer's lint filter looks like.
well,...the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn't go through
it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh
that's what burns out the heating unit. You can't SEE the film, but it's
there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and
static free -- that nice fragrance too, you know how they can feel waxy
when you take them out of the box, well t his stuff builds up on your
clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer
units to catch fire & potentially burn your house down with it! He said
the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (& to keep
your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out & wash it with hot
soapy water & an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six
months. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long!
How about that!?! Learn something new everyday! I certainly didn't know
dryer sheets would do that. So, I thought I'd share!
Note: I went to my dryer & tested m y screen by running water on it. The
water ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in the
mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water & a nylon brush & I had
it done in 30 seconds. Then when I rinsed it the water ran right Thru
the screen! There wasn't any pudding at all! That repairman knew what he was talking about!

A lot of those are quite interesting. I'm not sure I'd wrap my cheese in aluminum foil, however - it may last longer, but it also tends to start tasting of metal. We take our brick of cheese, cut it into smaller chunks, and individually wrap each one in saran wrap. This prevents the brick from drying out because it wasn't wrapped up properly. Cheese never lasts long enough around here to go bad, though

How do you peel a banana from the bottom without cheating and using a knife to start things? Peeling from the top may require pulling off strings, but at least you can do it by hand._________________Homeschool Articles - Events - Support Groups

LOL that's the truth! I can't stand saran wrap...one box will last years around here. I much prefere foil...althought the press and seal stuff is handy for other things like placemats for messy projects etc.

I leave cheese in the original package as much as possible and then put it in a ziplock bag. I've heard that in order to keep cheese from going moldy, you shouldn't touch it with your hands. The claim was that that is how they can cut big blocks of cheese without it going moldy. I guess that is unless you are into that mold-covered stinky cheese to begin with!

Fruit flies, their eggs, larvae, or pupa must hitch a ride on bananas.
Wash the bunch of bananas under running cool water and drain or dry with a towel. Since I've been doing this (few years), I haven't seen any fruit flies.

When bananas become too overripe to eat, toss them in the freezer in their skins. Make banana bread when you are ready. Also, peel and mash into plastic container, then freeze. Slightly thaw and eat or use for smoothies or to make desserts.

I leave cheese in the original package as much as possible and then put it in a ziplock bag. I've heard that in order to keep cheese from going moldy, you shouldn't touch it with your hands. The claim was that that is how they can cut big blocks of cheese without it going moldy. I guess that is unless you are into that mold-covered stinky cheese to begin with!

Here's a neat experiment, take a piece of cheese and touch it with a not clean finger, maybe on a couple of sides, and have a couple of sides as control and see what happens, it is really cool!_________________Phi 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

The local news aired an experiment about the 5 second rule. Safe or not? Of course all the foods that were dropped on the floor for even 1 second picked up some kind of microbe. The conclusion was that the microbes weren't likely to cause sickness depending on the type of germ and the longer the food stayed on the floor, the longer bacteria will have a chance to grow. So, pick it up quickly.

That's great, but I won't eat anything dropped on the floor unless I just cleaned it. (The microbes I am not even aware off. It's the fuzz, hair, and grit that I picture.) One of my sons will eat about anything he drops on the floor and he is rarely sick.

The whole thing is silly anyway. I guarantee the wash cloth left in the kitchen sink from the night before has more bacteria than the floor or probably the toilet seat. Besides, if you make a sandwich on the kitchen counter, chances are there is bacteria there, too.